Malaria moves in behind the loggers

Guardian – Andrés Schipani in Mazán and John Vidal
Tuesday October 30, 2007

Deforestation and climate change are returning the mosquito-borne disease to parts of Peru after 40 years

Map: Where malaria occurs in South America (pdf)

The afternoon is hot and sticky on the banks of the Napo river, an arm of the Amazon, but Claudio, a logger, is shivering in his creaky wooden bed.

“I feel bad, very bad, pain all over my body, fever, high fever, shudders,” he says. “I have malaria; this is the 17th time so far. I don’t know what to do any more.”

The mosquito-borne illness has returned to the many villages only accessible by boat in the Peruvian Amazon, inflicting on the inhabitants days of fever, permanent anaemia and – in the worst cases – death.

In Peru, malaria was almost eradicated 40 years ago, but this year 64,000 cases have been registered in the country, half in the Amazon region. It is thought there are many more unregistered cases deep within the massive and humid rainforest, where health authorities find it almost impossible to gain access.”Malaria is present. There have been 32,000 cases this year in this area alone – that says malaria is very much present,” said Hugo Rodríguez, a doctor at the Andean Health Organisation, which is fighting malaria in border areas of Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela.

His organisation distributes mosquito nets to some villagers, spreading the message through the area that the illness is dangerous and – where they can identify the cases – helping in post-infection treatment.

“Now we are not talking about eradicating malaria any more, as that is impossible and unsustainable; we are doing our best to try and control it,” he added.

Climate change and deforestation are behind the return of malaria in the Peruvian Amazon.

Off-season rain is altering the pattern of mosquito development, leaving puddles containing the lethal larvae in areas where malaria had been nonexistent.

“The actual malaria problem of the Peruvian Amazon is caused by constant climate changes,” said biologist Carlos Pacheco, head of the mosquito control unit in Iquitos, the regional capital south of Mazán.

And deforestation is having a similar effect, forcing the mosquito to move to new areas and spreading the disease to places where people are not aware of the disease, where villagers lack the means to get hold of mosquito nets and preventive medicines, and where health authorities have no presence.

“Every time we fight the mosquito, we feel we are fighting against a much more evolved and adaptable one, one that can easily migrate to areas that were clean of malaria before and that are very hard to access,” said Mr Pacheco.

Two scientific reports last year linked malaria with deforestation. Peruvian researchers found that frontier areas cleared of trees for logging, settlements, roads, farming or mining were far more likely to harbour malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

In one Peruvian study, researchers said the biting rate of mosquitoes in deforested areas was nearly 300 times greater than in virgin forests. Increases in human population density had no impact on biting rates.

The insects lay their eggs and thrive in open, sunlit pools of water. Roadbuilders dig channels and culverts which become blocked, silt washes off farmland blocking streams, and opencast mines and new settlements create ideal breeding grounds.

Anyone who catches malaria in the Amazon region has few opportunities for treatment. Even in the most densely populated areas, there are few health centres.

Loggers are the mosquitoes’ main victim.

“The districts with the higher logging activity are the critical ones, making the disease there to be almost impossible to control,” said Dr Rodríguez.

“It is very hard to access the areas where the clearing of the rainforest occurs and these people are not conscious of the risks and once infected – and sometimes because of the illegality of this activity – loggers are very reluctant to get treated by health authorities.”

Alongside the Amazon river and its many tributaries, poverty-stricken loggers like Claudio move deep into the rainforest, in areas where malaria is prevalent, without taking any precautions and for meagre wages.

Pointing at his neighbour’s one-year-old son who is recovering from the disease, Arquímedes of the village of Manacamiri near Iquitos said: “Here most people suffer from this disease, from malaria.

“There are no other diseases like this, no other problems like this here … We have now become the malaria zone.”

Behind him, the bank of the low Nanay river seems nothing more than a mud puddle with mosquitoes buzzing around.

“Children, elderly, how many deaths we already had,” said Arquímedes.

“At the beginning we had no idea what it was, and it was malaria … there is not a single day without a malaria patient.”

Saving endangered Salt Creek tiger beetle could be costly

Associated Press

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – 1 of the rarest species of beetle in the country may be in its last stages of existence, and saving it could cost millions of dollars to two Nebraska counties.

The endangered Salt Creek tiger beetle is found in rare saline wetlands in Saunders County, south of Ceresco and north of Lincoln. The wetlands were once common here but urban expansion and farming have degraded the beetle’s habitat.

Designating critical habitats for the beetle could reduce land values and restrict development in certain areas, but could also bring in conservation dollars from the government and nonprofits. That’s according to a study commissioned by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

A survey this summer found 263 tiger beetles, down from 777 in 2002.

Beetle could become Britain’s first extinction of new millennium

 Independent

Efforts are being made this week to prevent Britain’s first species extinction in the new millennium – of a beetle that was discovered only two years ago.

The streaked bombardier beetle is officially the UK’s rarest insect, known from only one colony, on a brownfield site on the Thames estuary in east London. However, the site is about to be redeveloped for housing, and the rubble-strewn habitat it has found congenial is to be obliterated.

In an attempt to save the beetle, the developers have created an alternative site on the edge of the housing area, and this week volunteers from the London Wildlife Trust have tried to relocate the insects. Otherwise, disappearance looms for Brachinus sclopeta, which only a month ago was added to the UK’s list of priority endangered species.

“This isn’t an extinction in a remote rainforest on the other side of the world,” said Jamie Roberts of Buglife, the invertebrate conservation charity. “It’s happening right here on our doorstep, and could have been avoided if the site had been protected. It’s very sad that a deliberate choice has been made to plough on with this development, regardless of the consequences to wildlife.”

Bombardier beetles are among the insect world’s more remarkable creatures. They possess an effective defence mechanism, which comprises their ability to fire a boiling chemical spray from the tip of the abdomen. This is fatal to other insects and discouraging to larger potential enemies, including humans.

There are about 250 species of bombardier beetle, but in Britain there was thought, until recently, to be only one – the common bombardier, Brachinus crepitans, which, despite its name, is scarce. But in May 2005, one of Britain’s leading entomologists, Richard Jones, discovered the colony of streaked bombardiers while conducting a survey for the developers of the building site, which is near the Thames Barrier.

The insect was regarded as “missing, believed extinct”, as it had not been seen in Britain since 1928, and before that the last reliable records were from the mid-19th century, so it immediately became Britain’s greatest invertebrate rarity.

Mr Jones has been instrumental in persuading the company to create an alternative site nearby, and he has led the way in finding and moving the insects, so far having moved about 10. A search on Monday with a dozen volunteers produced only one more.

One of the difficulties with translocation is the beetle’s life cycle; the larvae of bombardiers are known to prey on specific examples of other beetle species, especially of the ground beetle genus Amara, but it is not known which Amara species is the prey of the streaked bombardier. To provide for this eventuality, Mr Jones has also been translocating examples of Amara beetles from one site to the other.

Matt Shardlow, the director of Buglife, said the charity was sceptical of the possibilities of success, but wished the enterprise well.

A number of insect species are believed to have become extinct in Britain in recent years, including the short-haired bumblebee, last seen on the Kent coast in 1988, and the large blue butterfly, which died out in 1979. However, the large blue has been reintroduced successfully and is now thriving at a number of sites in the West Country